Soren and Isabel
by peaceinfiction
Summary: Retelling of Tristan and Isolde with a fairytale twist. Expected to be a long & twisting fic with sporadic updates.
1. Chapter 1

Søren and Isobel

A retelling of Tristan and Isolde

When solstice breaks in the gray shatters of the hall in clan Aerin's keep, the tongues of sway-backed men begin to wag. Early, before the drunks rise from their positions draped from stool and bench, is when secrets can be spilled, and reality up-turned like the wine-pitchers of Rothgild's sentries. Only then, in the new reaches of high summer does their tale moisten on the lips and stir the hearts of man and maid.

Part I~ The Boy

The winter after Kilfaarg attacked the lower kingdom lay bitter in the hearts of many. The old earl's alliance had brought nothing but misery to the mothers and wives of clan Aerin. When the first snowmelt broadened into rivers to feed the barren fields, the absence of the menfolk was felt all the more keenly. The thatched roofs of the town bore the marks of ill-maintenance; the stacked firewood looked too much diminished for the season.

Baron Liame's household was no worse off than those in the surrounding region. The loose stones on his castle's steps needed upkeep, but the loss of the fighting force who guarded the earl during the treaty left nothing to be done until the boys grew into men and babes once again quickened to replace the dead. Liame's household, though missing many a soldier, made up one for its head count with the addition of Søren, the nephew of the baron and heir to the house Dirgrin. Orphaned by this latest attack, the boy had barely twelve summers, and was a scrawny weed of a lad with dark locks and a face that would one day be considered handsome.

The white wisps of mourning still clung to the lad like ivy upon an ancient ruin. However, despite a hard winter, he had begun to warm to his surroundings as ice melting on the purple hills beyond the borders of Liame's land. Søren traversed the keep accompanied by his uncles's eldest surviving child, Eerni, and the boys became a living tempest wreaking havoc upon the keep. Kept isolated by late snows they were shooed by cook and kitchen maid alike.

Now, with the rays of golden sun heralding the warm summer months, the boys were free to roam the forests and streams so long as they ventured back to assist the plowing and spent two tedious hours studying with the castle's most learned man, Father Arthur. Søren took quickly to the romping life lived by his cousin, but the shroud of death is not so easily unwound. It often crept over the boy, causing the milkmaids to cross themselves whenever he passed. Whispers followed him: They spoke of prophecy, that a son of Dirgrin would bring sorrow and pain to the house of Aerin. When the old wive's tales grew dull, suddenly someone would remember a different foretelling, that a son of Aerin and Dirgrin would free the kingdom from Kilfaarg's bloody grip.

Unable to marry the tales to one another, each spun its own web when the planting had finished and hunting season began. Gradually the town grew used to its newest inhabitant and they shelved the stories in () filling larders to be saved for the shorter months.

The boy himself, oblivious to the noisy chatter in the grand hall, passed his first summer peacefully in Aerin. Summer shifted quickly to autumn; fall's sweet aromas faded to winter's smoky scents. He grew up. Before he knew it seven years had passed, and the melancholy memories mellowed with time.

Søren learned the arts of spear and broad sword, mace and bow. For his and Eernie's nineteenth name-days, both falling sometime in the early spring, all the young men of similar age rode out to Killkennu Forest in quest of wild boar. In Aerin there is an ancient tradition, one could almost call it superstition, that menfolk must ride out on the first full moon of spring to assist the mother-goddess in bringing summer again. The largest predator would be tasked by the harsh winter gods with stopping the mother's progress.

To this end, the most able bodied rode out to champion their summer queen and aid the approach of the warm season. This year would be the first since the earl's alliance which caused the deaths of so many town's folk, that they could spare the men to hunt. When the boys returned they would be men and thereby granted the rights of men in the small community.

Søren urged his mount forward. The wind whipped past him and stung his already aching hands. He grasped the reigns more tightly. His mare, a golden blur of an animal, leapt over a fallen log in pursuit of the beast; they were gaining on it. The gigantic, slobbering boar lunged into a clearing, just as Søren's fellows circled round to trap the beast. Gripping his spear, the boy-man lurched forward to the side of the heaving belly of the boar. Moonlight illuminates Ivory razors as they pierce the shadowy figure. Shrieks of the dying animal, shouts ring out, mumbled orders, blackness…

He blearily awakes to heat in the stuffy warmth of a hedge-witch's cave. "Drink." Then darkness again. The sound of sobs. Movement, shafts of light from the clearing he killed the boar in. Heat again, this time too hot. Søren is reminded of the pyres for the dead back in Dirgrin, but it cannot be… no one is dead. He wants to yell, call out that he is still alive, but something stops him, a hitch in his throat, or an unsung curse of fate. He surrenders to the darkness, ash falling around him like rain, welcomed into Morpheus' arms.

Thank you for reading!


	2. Chapter 2

Part II~ The Girl

Winter brought plagues to the King's nation. The pestilence predicted by the river god's high priests wrought terrors to the land. "It is a cleansing" they preached in the temples; "It is a curse" they moaned in the mead halls. "Six years and the king's ambition to rule the lower alliance has brought a blight to the land and a hollow in our bellies."

Isobel wondered if it might not be both as she watched the pall bearers carry away her father's body. The many clansmen sang dirges to their king, grieving for the future they had fought for and yet would not be. A year later, as the winter snows swept into spring rains, Isobel pondered how easy it was that such a powerful figure as her father could be brushed away like last-year's dust, reduced to mere memory.

She sat in the drafty chambers in the upper floors of Kilfaarg's greatest castle. Today she turned eighteen. Today she relinquished all her power. If only her father could of held on to life for another two months. Kilfaarg could go without a designated ruler for no more than five seasons, and if the heir to the kingdom reached the age of nineteen within that time, than they could be emancipated and rule with the assistance of a chosen lord until they reached the age of twenty-two. At that point, the heir would complete the tests of chivalry necessary to rule alone. If, by some mischance however, the heir was unable to finish the tests, then a tournament would be opened allowing all contenders age nineteen to thirty to compete for the throne.

As a female, Isobel knew she would never be allowed to rule, let alone compete in the tournament. She had hoped her stepbrother, seventeen-year-old Mundae, would be able to ascend, however, he fell short two months the council deemed critical. Now, until he reached the age of twenty-two, and could call for a tourney, the Lord Protectors would rule in his stead. As the oldest of the royal children, she would be deemed most threatening. Now it was only a matter of time before she would be hand-fasted, either to a high noble, or to the river god as a novice.

A few of the candles in her chambers spluttered out, leaving a smell of burnt tallow. Stretching, Isobel rose from her seat and whistled a few sharp commands to the maid outside the oaken door to her quarters. Isobel instructed her to bring more wicks for the tapers. The maid rushed to do as she was bid. As soon as the girl was out of earshot, Isobel lightly skipped down the four flights of stairs to the hall. She glided across the floor, skirts barely brushing the rushes newly strewn across the floor. When she reached her destination, the stables, a large black dog bounded to her side as she approached one of the horses. She fed the dog a sweetmeat, and reaching inside her pullover, gave an apple to the stallion.

The stable hand on duty harnessed the huge charger for her and with a wink, nudged open the stable doors. With the dog at her side, and the horse at her beck, she took the reins and smiled at the man. The stallion wheeled for a moment before darting out of the stable and across Kilfarrg's murky moat on the bridge. Isobel plunged into the forest bordering the lands, a tangle of wilderness untouched by men.

Laughing merrily, she held out her arms for the touch of the forest, welcoming her back into its folds. Her dark, waist-length braid flapped in the wind, slapping her back with each stride of the horse. The huge beast under her and the dog at her side began to sweat from the exertion; their breath came in misty clouds on the cold day. With the girl on his back, the horse spiritedly cantered through the snaking woodland trails, and veered off its usual course to chomp on the leaves of a candlewood tree. She hopped off the saddle. Isobel brushed back a curtain of vines, to reveal a beautiful clearing.

Gasping, she took in the magical scene. The area was hedged by silver aspens, their long torsos swayed to the rhythm of an almost imperceptible breeze. A small stream wove in and out of the quaking trees which were illuminated by light rays of early sunshine. When Isobel looked to the very center of this hideaway, she noticed what her first glance had failed to consider. At the very center of the clearing, surrounded by what looked to be the remnants of a fire, was a boy.

When she approached the sprawled figure, Isobel revised her first judgement. The body was, undoubtedly male, but not a child as she initially suspected. The man looked to be between the ages of 15 and twenty, judging by the fine tufts of stubble upon his cheeks.

The girl jumped back when she noticed his hand twitch. She was no stranger to death; by the pallor of the man's face she had assumed the worst, though his skin seemed unmarred by burns. Slowly, she approached and felt for a heartbeat. Her query was answered by resolute "thump, thump". The stranger slowly opened his eyes and asked, "Are you my guardian angel?"


	3. Chapter 3

Part III~ The Goddess

He slowly meanders into consciousness, at once only aware of absence. Something is not quite right. It dawns on him like an April rainstorm, swift, unforgiving, knocking the air out of his lungs. Lungs. Søren tries to open his mouth, or what was his mouth. Suddenly all sense of material and immaterial seem to vanish. Ownership flees, leaving but the faintest wisp of memory. Mouths are simply ideas, made for communication. Communication? What need has an angel for speech. He is everything: eternal, pure, divine. The feeling rings through him, resonating, he harmonizes with the universe…

All of a sudden the feeling leaves him. Hollow, a shell, mortal. "Silly humans" a melodious voice rings out. "So selfish once you have fed of ambrosia." Søren starts. He notices that he has hands. His feeling of self swiftly jolts back. He remembers. Smoke. Boar. Fire. Pyre. But then how is he here and where is here?

Again the disembodied voice rings out, answering his unspoken questions. Coldly feminine, "You are dead in Purgatory, Hell, The Otherworld, Heaven, or whatever you desire to call it." His mind briefly registers a thought before that too is answered; "My name is Medeina". "The earth goddess?" he vaguely thinks to ask, before that too stimulates an affirmative.

Through the fog of his existence, a figure twirls together, she combines thoughts, memories, preconceived notions, biases he didn't realize he had into a radiant being. She shapes a world for him, a world in which he agrees to be her champion. He will be reborn like a phoenix from the ashes of his pyre. He killed her boar, so he must be strong, but for that he will do penance as her champion. Two tasks are all she requires of him, one as payment for the boar, the second for a new life. He says yes. How can he think to do otherwise? She is a Goddess.

Beckoning a second figure out of the mist, the goddess bestows him with a companion; a guardian angel that she says will appear to him when he is back in his mortal body. 'A spy?' he wonders, before that thought is lost to the swirling fog of the afterworld. He is falling, flying, abruptly he jolts into consciousness to see an ethereal figure looming over him. "Are you my guardian angel" is all he has time to query before he yet again succumbs to darkness and the frustrated thought, 'not again' rings in his ears.


End file.
